About 80 Hays-area business leaders and community leaders were behind bars Wednesday.

They hadn’t been arrested.  They were volunteers “serving time” in the Muscular Dystrophy Association lock-up fundraiser.

The jailbirds were housed at the Fox Pavilion, where they ate lunch while calling, texting and e-mailing friends and family for “bail money.”  All the donations go to MDA.

There are more than 40 types of muscular dystrophy, which vary in severity.  All of Kansas west of Topeka is served by the Wichita-based MDA Ark Valley Chapter.

According to Executive Director Lacey Mills, about 500 Kansans have various neuromuscular diseases, with 11 of those people living in Hays and another 6 living elsewhere in Ellis County.